SURROGACY UP CLOSE

What is Surrogacy?

“Surrogacy is an arrangement between a woman and a couple or individual to carry and deliver a baby. It is a controversial process that is not legal in all states.

There are two kinds of surrogate mothers.

Traditional surrogates. Artificial insemination first made surrogacy possible. A traditional surrogate is a woman who is artificially inseminated with the father's sperm. She then carries the baby and delivers it for the parents to raise. A traditional surrogate is the baby's biological mother. That's because it was her egg that was fertilized by the father's sperm. Donor sperm can also be used for a traditional surrogacy.

Gestational surrogates. Invitro-fertilization (IVF) now makes it possible to harvest eggs from the mother, fertilize them with sperm from the father, and place the embryo into the uterus of a gestational surrogate. The surrogate then carries the baby until birth. A gestational surrogate has no genetic ties to the child. That's because it wasn't her egg that was used. A gestational surrogate is called the "birth mother." The biological mother, though, is still the woman whose egg was fertilized.

The surrogacy arrangement is sometimes made through an agency and other times contracted privately. When searching for a surrogate mother, a couple might use the Internet, contact an agency, or network through friends and family. Surrogacy arrangements are sometimes made between strangers who never meet, or between persons who meet only occasionally through the process. A surrogacy arrangement might also involve persons whose lives become intertwined during the process, and even those who are family members or friends before entering a surrogacy arrangement.”

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Whenever I think about surrogacy, I immediately go to the emotional part. How difficult it must be for a woman to carry a child, knowing that she will not be able to raise this child. I would imagine that she is forced to prevent, as much as she can, bonding with this child.

There is a reality show carried by the Oxygen Channel, entitled, “I am having your baby.” I have not been able to watch an episode yet, but from previews, I see where it is very emotional for these women as they prepare to give up their babies to the rightful owners. So emotional that my husband, who does not show emotions easily, saw one of the previews and after being quiet for a moment said, ‘sad.’

When I was struggling with infertility, my sister did mention that she could consider having my baby. I was deeply touched, but I was not sure that I was able to deal with all that this would entail. Then, I would have done anything for a baby, but surrogacy would have put it over the top for me. Bless her heart.

Hats off to these women who are involved in surrogacy. This practice might not be overall legal, but you  may not be able to comprehend fully, the joy you bring to others, who otherwise would not have a chance at having biological children. Do know that what you do, is for me, among the highest level of selflessness.

Post image by: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/07/health/surrogate-sisters

Sources sited for information on surrogacy:-

 http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-surrogacy.htm#slideshow

http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/guide/using-surrogate-mother

A matter of the heart

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

Last Sunday a doctor known to perform late term abortions was gunned down while serving as an usher at his Church in Kansas. He was apparently murdered by an abortion activist who is said to be also anti-government.

Apparently this particular doctor and others who perform these kinds of abortions very often come under fire and have protests organized against them.

I was watching Anderson Cooper the other night on CNN and Anderson was talking to one of the colleagues of the murdered doctor, who apparently plans to take over his practice and he mentioned that only late term pregnancies that threatened the life of the mother or pregnancies with fetuses that were severely abnormal and could not survive outside of a woman’s body were actually aborted. Anderson specifically asked him if other abortions outside of this nature were also performed and he said flatly no.

Anderson interviewed one woman who opted to abort her pregnancy because her baby had a severe neural tube defect known as ‘anencephaly’ resulting in the absence of brain or skull. This woman and her family opted to abort their baby to cut down on the amount of pain and distress that they would have to face if they chose to prolong the baby’s life until its demise. This could not be done in her state however, because of laws against abortion, instead they advised her that she would have had to carry the pregnancy until her body ended the pregnancy or have the abortion done in another state that supported abortions of this nature. She was so outraged that she wrote a letter to then Senator, Barack Obama. I am a fan of President Obama, and I would love if he paid much attention to this letter and this woman’s issue and have the laws of the state rewritten to give women in this unenviable position, the right to make up their own minds about these kinds of pregnancies. After all, ‘only he who feels it truly knows.’

Another woman was interviewed who chose to keep her pregnancy even though her baby would not survive very long after birth, due to a chromosomal abnormality known as ‘trisomy 18’ which is incompatible with life. She said she and her family prefers that the baby goes the natural way, that is, die when it was time.

My problem then is, if this doctor only performs abortions of this nature, why then are people so outraged? I guess they probably know otherwise.

I am aware that there will always be people who abuse the system and make it bad for others so it is therefore up to the state and the doctors involved in this regard to ensure that this system is not used by others as a form of birth control but be reserved for people who actually have very good reason to use it.

My family could have been in this position in February 2006, when we learnt that our baby, which I was seven months pregnant with at the time, had a condition known as ‘hydrops fetalis’ where the fetus had too much fluid and also had multiple other disorders e.g. down syndrome and, severe heart conditions and was given only a 30% chance at life. Luckily for us, my body made our decision because the baby died in-utero, about a month after being diagnosed.
I know if our baby had not died, we would have been faced with the decision of whether to abort her and save her having to come into this world and live a compromised life or to let her live even when the odds were so high, and hope for the best.

I do understand the second woman’s position to have her baby go the natural way, but believe me, as per my experience, this wait is very difficult. I had to wait a whole month for tests to be done before I could choose which option I would take and this was painful. You go through a lot emotionally. First of all you are just waiting to hear someone come to you and say this is all but a cruel joke, your baby is fine. Then the days drag along and sometimes you feel like you cannot get up out of the bed to face another day. When those days came, I just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling and the walls, looking for some answer.

Everyone was praying for us, our families, friends, our church but one day I was lying there on my bed and it suddenly occurred to me that my baby was still sick, all those prayers were not answered and sure enough, our baby died shortly after. I even had a dream that our baby was born and was very weak but as each day passed, she became stronger and stronger. I said this to someone, who quickly cautioned me that dreams usually come in the exact opposite of their meanings. Understandably, I was crushed, because I was hoping that this dream would indeed become a reality.

If our baby had survived I believe we probably would have chosen the optioned that prolonged her life as long as possible because we were trying for a baby so long and would give anything to know that she would be around for as long as she could.

All in all, I just cannot understand not having the freedom to make these decisions yourself and instead have them made by someone else. This should clearly be a matter of the heart. Worst if they are allowed to be made by people who have never been faced with a situation as frightening and painful as this.

I therefore have no problem with these abortions if they are practiced within the parameters that they should.

My heart goes out to families having to make the very difficult decisions of whether to keep their precious little ones or not and for those who would give anything to becoming pregnant.

Keep clinging to hope.

Until next time

My Infertility Story - My infertility and my family cont'd.

Wow, when I was diagnosed with infertility, I really did not know how hard it would have been to talk to my family about it, to secure the support that one would need from their family in situations such as this. I thought it would have been easy at least to talk to my husband since he is the closest to me, but sadly this was not the case. It was as my struggle progressed that I realized that I felt embarrassed whenever I thought of sharing my story with my family and became even more embarrassed as time passed, to the point that I did not want to try anymore. I guess apart from the embarrassment I felt, I just thought they would not understand and would probably say things to make me more upset.

Where the rest of my family is concerned, as I mentioned before, I tried to talk to them occasionally about my infertility, but unfortunately did not get very far, as embarrassment would begin to set in or something would be said to turn me off. The little that they knew about my struggles, therefore, was sadly not enough to secure the kind of support that one would expect from their family.

I wanted so much a connection with my family so that they would ask me what is happening with me where children were concerned, when they realised that time was passing and I was not having any. I would have jumped at that opportunity to talk but unfortunately I waited and waited and sadly it did not happen.

The only question my mom, would ask was, “when are you going to pay the man back for his ring?” (She means giving my husband a child). I found this quite amusing at first but as my infertility progressed, I was not happy anymore to hear it and her other comments. My Dad, I remember visiting him once and was telling him that one of my sisters was expecting a second child. I really did not see his response coming. “What about you, he asked, you are wasting time.” I did not know if I was to cry or just grab my things and run until I reached my home. I was so upset and taken aback, as I thought my father would at least be on my side, as I think he understands me more than anyone else in my family.

Once my father took ill and my sister and I journeyed out to the country to see him. I was so excited about this trip as I had made a vow that I would use this time and fill my sister in about my struggle with infertility. I could not say a word, the cat must have had my tongue as I could not find it. I was so devastated I felt like crying.

I remember once I was talking to one of my sisters and I was beginning to divulge some of the emotional battles I was having. I was feeling very good about this, as this was the first time I was actually reaching this far with any one from my family. The wind was ripped from my sail as she began to tell me that she is really not sure that she would be so upset and depressed about infertility. I did not know what to say. She has a child I thought, how could she know what yearning for a child feels like.

On yet another occasion, I was telling another family member that I was at the supermarket earlier that day and it felt like my infertility was punishing me. There were so many cute babies that came into the store and if that was not enough, there were twins among them. I felt as if my infertility was being thrown into my face and so I hurriedly picked up what I went for and got out. To my dismay, my sister said to me, “just try and block things like that.” Block it, I thought, exactly how would I do that. (She has two beautiful children).
I was mortified and vowed that this would be the end of me trying to talk to my family about the struggles I was having with my infertility as clearly they could not help me.

I know if they knew that saying things like those upset me, they would not have said them, and so even as I was feeling upset, I was feeling guilty that I was being so resentful towards them.
Needless to say, the loneliness I felt following this was even more overwhelming, but I thought, I have made it this far on my own so I will carry on, even if it kills me.

More in next post. I am sure by now you do not want to miss the rest.

My Infertility Story - The psychological, social and emotional effects

Infertility comes with its share of psychological, social and emotional effects and I am sure this holds true for any medical condition that one is diagnosed with.
For me, these effects began surfacing about two to three years into my struggle. I realized that I felt uneasy whenever I was around pregnant women and whenever I was around young children, and this uneasiness grew into resentment as the years went by. Sadly this feeling of uneasiness was also present when I was around my pregnant sisters and young children in my family and this made me feel even worse. I love my family but it was very hard not being able to participate in its enlargement and enrichment and so I felt as if I was a betrayal and that I had let down my family. I remember just thinking that eventually I could be the only sibling in my family without children and I could not help but picture myself at the family gatherings being sad and miserable and wanting to be anyplace else but there. At times, even though I was with my family, there was a loneliness deep within the core of my being and it was even worse that I could not bring myself to telling them of this great pain that I was in due to infertility. A few of my family members knew about my struggle, but not in any great detail, because on a whole, I was much too embarrassed to talk about it to anyone.
There were days when I felt as if I could run away to hide in a cave where I would not have to be reminded of my infertility, as it was impossible to go about my normal life without being faced with pregnant women and young children which reminded me so much of my infertility. Even going to my gynecologist caused uneasiness as I would meet upon those very young and fertile pregnant women
I dreaded being invited to children’s birthday parties as I knew that I would be one of the only persons there without children and therefore would feel out of place. After all, how would I be able to take part in a conversation when it is all about children, what adorable thing they did or said recently and how they are getting on in school. It made it no better that the birthday party was for a child in my family, as all parties of that nature caused me great discomfort.
Christmas was especially hard for me and I made a vow that I would not put up a Christmas tree until there was a child in my home, as I felt Christmas was for children. I stuck to that vow even though my friends thought I was crazy.
Mother’s Day was the worst, and many times I felt as if I would just stay home from Church.
I remember one particular Mother’s Day when all the mothers were called out for tokens, I was one of the only ones left in the audience. This moment was just too overwhelming for me and I walked outside and did not return until church had ended.
This struggle with infertility was particularly hard for me because my mother-in-law was yearning for grandchildren as well and so I had to deal with the feeling that she might be thinking, why did my son marry this infertile girl, couldn’t he have found someone who was younger and fertile (I am older than my husband and my mother-in-law did in fact knew the most about my struggle as she recommended me to two of the doctors that I saw).
As a result of this, it was hard for me to be completely myself when I was around her, as I just could not get past the misery and guilt I felt and the yearning that I knew she had for grandchildren. I remember one day I was at home feeling quite guilty and miserable and so I called my mother-in-law and apologized to her for not being able to give her any grandchildren as yet, (can you even imagine that I did that). Well, I did and after that I felt even more miserable.
I soon realized that the friends I had were getting fewer and fewer in number because as soon as they became pregnant I would begin withdrawing from them and as their baby shower approaches, I started trying hard to find some other reason to tell them when I see them afterwards, why I could not have been at their baby shower, other than the fact that I could not attend because I was jealous of the fact they were pregnant. As their baby christening approached, I would go through the same ritual of trying to find some reason not to attend church. I usually attend though but after purchasing something new to wear that would lift my spirits.

I was struggling with infertility alone and I was dying a lonely painful death. I did not even trust my best friends for fear they would simply not understand. In fact I did not trust anyone who was not experiencing infertility and so that eliminated almost everybody that I was close to. One of my doctors even referred me to a support group, but I thought to myself, who am I kidding, I am not in the least bit ready yet to declare that I do not have this thing under control. I am still in battle and I have all intentions of winning and so, I'll postpone support groups and all that good stuff until later when I'll need them more.

I soon realised however that this struggle was consuming me. I grew tired, so tired and weary of the emotional rollercoaster ride, as it took so much energy out of me to not go over the edge. I grew tired of hating myself for doing things only because they were the socially acceptable thing to do or that they made others happy……..what about my happiness, I thought.

Be sure to catch the next post as I relate how I eventually broke free from all this toxic drama. This I am sure could help you my readers who are currently at this point in your experience.